I have just bought an Hitachi DZ-HS500E camcorder. It has a DVD and hard drive as well as an SD card. Can someone tell me what is the principle involved when making a video and then transferring and editing it on a pc ?

As far as the DVD drive is concerned I have to "finalise" the disk before the PC will read it (and in fact I can play them back successfully once I have done this) but all the clips seem to be in one large file (there are other smaller files). And as far as any clips on the HD are concerned the PC can't recognise them at all when I plug the camcorder into the USB slot (although it knows it's there when I switch the camcorder on).

There is a CD in the box with Imagemixer on it and I did install it but before I could use it I was asked a series of questions that frankly I thought were too inquisitive and so I un-installed the software.

Do I have to persevere with Imagemixer or is there another way ? I was hoping it was going to be just like pushing an SD camera card into the USB slot and away you go but there seems more to it than that.

I am running a new PC with Vista Home Premium.

I would be gratefull for all answers and tips. I did read FAQs but couldn't find what I was looking for.

Scooby

Is anyone able to give me advice on the above please ?